


Betting With a Bad Hand

by gwennolmarie



Series: Face Cards [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Dirty Thoughts, Hair Pulling Kink, Hair Washing, Injury, Other, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Trans Character, Unrequited Crush, are we acknowledging it yet? no, dysphoria is also mentioned here but like not in an angsty way AT ALL, john has a hair pulling kink, lowkey mutual pining but, non-binary john marston
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 21:43:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18764818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwennolmarie/pseuds/gwennolmarie
Summary: “My comfort ain’t the concern here, John,” Arthur says with a firm squeeze where his hand is nestled in the crook of the younger’s knee.“Well my comfort ain’t got limits,” John grumbles quietly.





	Betting With a Bad Hand

**Author's Note:**

> this is set a week after deal me a fate jsyk it's not essential to read it but like...  
> you should

“I ain’t a kid anymore, Arthur,” John grumbles as he sits a few feet from the bank of the river Arthur is currently waist deep in.

“You know this ain’t about age,” Arthur rolls his eyes and uses cupped hands to splash John who yelps and holds his arm up to shield his face.

“Arthur!” John scolds and peeks out under one hand.

“Do you want to split that wound open,” Arthur asks calmly, fighting back a grin, “Again?”

John squints at the older man for a moment then sighs and starts unbuttoning his shirt.

“You can keep your underwear on…” Arthur says quietly before sinking down a bit and awkwardly flicking at the water as he waits.

John glances up at him and meets Arthur’s gaze, considering.

He studies Arthur’s face for a moment and Arthur feels stiff under the scrutiny.

John looks back down and continues to undress, getting down to his short drawers then hesitating.

“John…” Arthur starts but John waves him off and undoes the laces holding the waistband tight before scooting back to slip out of them as well, pulling both underwear and pants down off his legs and tossing them into the pile next to him.

When the younger looks up Arthur’s studying his face in return and John flushes before quickly slipping into the water.

“Jesus Christ,” John hisses and tensely sinks down to his collarbones, teeth clenched against the chill.

Arthur snickers and stands back up, the water a little deeper where he is, hitting just below his belly button.

He waves the washcloth at John.

John grumbles and wades closer to Arthur.

When he stands up again the water just hits his belly button.

He shivers once against the evening breeze then Arthur motions him towards a boulder in a more shallow area, the top of the big rock sticking out of the water.

“Get on up there with your back to me,” Arthur says then helps John onto the rock with a gentle hand on the side of the younger’s waist without the slow-healing gash.

John shivers again, at the warm fingers curled around his waist, but sits up on the rock with his legs pressed together, hands in his lap.

Arthur’s fingertips graze his nape as the older moves his hair out of the way.

John twists his fingers in his lap, feeling guilty at his anticipation of Arthur’s hands on him.

Cold water is splashed onto his back and he cringes away glancing back to see Arthur with the washcloth twisted between his hands from wringing the water onto John.

Arthur bites his lip but the corners of his mouth are pulled up so John levels him with a dark glare.

“Alright, sorry,” Arthur says sheepishly then lowers the cloth to get it wet again.

John turns back to look down at his legs, straightening them until his toes just peek above the water’s surface.

The cloth is cold for the first few seconds as Arthur presses the suds-filled cotton to the middle of John’s back then it gradually warms and the barrier between the older man’s hand and John’s skin feels minimal.

John twists his fingers again and distracts himself with flexing his toes to make little splashes.

The cloth drags down his spine and then up, back and forth over his shoulders in small circles.

Arthur’s fingers thread into John’s hair and lift it up so the cloth can move freely around the base of the younger’s neck before running up each side.

John tries to keep his breathing even as he imagines Arthur pulling his hair with his cock in John’s mouth.

There are drips of water running down John’s chest, the breeze hitting him dead on but he’s anything but cold now.

The hand leaves his hair.

His back is clean, quick enough.

“Turn ‘round,” Arthur murmurs and John shifts, spinning around on the rock until he’s facing the older man.

John swallows so hard he swears his ears pop as Arthur backs up slightly.

“What can you reach without it hurtin’?” Arthur asks, brows furrowed.

“Not much,” John says hoarsely.

The gash is long, almost wrapping around his back from where it starts under his ribs on his stomach.

Any twisting, bending at the waist, or lifting of that side’s arm sends sharp pains through his abdomen and, as they found out a few days ago, can and will rip the wound clean open.

“Okay,” Arthur says, frowning down at John’s legs, “Hold these.”

Arthur holds the cloth and soap out to John who takes it while Arthur wades to the banks and crawls out before digging through his satchel.

He returns with another cloth which he holds out to John.

“Gimme the other one,” Arthur says, “Then soap that one up.”

They trade cloths and John soaps the new one up before handing the soap over when Arthur reaches for it.

“You wash what you can reach, okay?” Arthur says as he kneels and brings up one of John’s ankles.

John tenses briefly before taking the soap back and putting it on the rock next to himself.

John starts with his face as Arthur washes his feet.

He wipes the soap away roughly with the back of his wrist before it can run into his eyes.

He goes back and forth between scrubbing the front of his torso and arms then setting the cloth in his lap and cupping water to rinse away the dirty suds.

By the time he’s done Arthur’s hand is wrapped around the back of his calf on one leg, both clean to the knees.

They reach the inevitable stalemate.  
John interlocks his fingers again and squeezes nervously.

“Just tell me when to stop,” Arthur says softly.

If John was honest with himself, as he glances between Arthur’s hands and the man’s face while Arthur starts carefully, slowly scrubbing and rinsing up each of John’s thighs, he’d never say stop.

He’s curious, though, how far Arthur is willing to go.

They’d talked about this once, John had asked the older man, when they were both deep in their own bottles, if Arthur had ever thought about him, being the only one who knew what John fully looked like.

Let alone how John felt about himself.

Arthur had looked caught-out, and then changed the topic, so John let it go.

But he had a good guess as to what the answer might have been.

He’s always trusted Arthur more than anyone, more than maybe even himself, but there’s been a shift in the last few years, in the way he thinks about Arthur.

A shift that had him glancing away, flustered, when Arthur praised him or teased him.

A shift that had a warmth settled in his gut as Arthur’s hands get halfway up his thighs and he glances up at John’s face.

Checking.

John says nothing, keeps his expression as neutral as possible.

“I still need to wash your hair,” Arthur says, more as a reminder to himself that slips out.

“Miss Grimshaw got me a wash bucket for the… important bits this morning but told me if I didn’t get fully clean she’d throw me in the lake by camp,” John says, “Which is why I asked you.”

“Oh,” Arthur says and glances briefly at the washcloth strategically covering John’s crotch before looking back up at the younger’s face.

“You can stop if you want to, is what I mean,” John says with an awkward shrug.

“...If I want to?” Arthur echoes, one brow quirked up.

John huffs and looks up, over Arthur’s head, over the horizon, to the slowly-becoming-visible stars.

“Of course you don’t want to, I mean if you ain’t comfortable.”

“My comfort ain’t the concern here, John,” Arthur says with a firm squeeze where his hand is nestled in the crook of the younger’s knee.

“Well my comfort ain’t got limits,” John grumbles quietly.

Arthur’s hand flexes its hold and John pretends to look for some of the constellations Hosea had taught them to find.

Arthur’s hand leaves him as the older stands up and John’s view of the sky is suddenly blocked by Arthur’s chest.

He looks the rest of the way up to meet Arthur’s eyes.

The older man looks a little… confused, if John had to put a name to the emotion.

Arthur clears his throat and tosses the cloth onto the rock and picks up the soap.

“Let’s wash your hair,” Arthur says softly and holds out a hand.

John slips into the water with Arthur’s help, tossing the cloth back up onto the rock as it slips off

He’s standing with his back to Arthur, waist deep in water, facing a vast forest.

Arthur’s hands come over John’s shoulders, into his peripheral vision and John stills.

The older man carefully gathers John’s hair and pulls it back.

John’s struck with the same idea as earlier, if he was facing Arthur, if he dropped to his knees…

Arthur’s hands move to cup the back of John’s arms and he guides John into the deeper water.

“Lean back,” the older man murmurs.

John’s feet lift off the riverbed and Arthur carefully keeps him floating until John balances out.

The younger opens his eyes, having closed them in fear of going under, and looks up at Arthur.

“Tilt your head back a lil’ more,” Arthur says and John bends his neck back until all his hair is submerged.

Arthur helps him stand back up and John crosses his arms loosely against the breeze.

The older man’s fingers card through his hair, carefully separating the strands before soaping up his hands.

The soap flies through the air and lands on the grass next to the river with a soft thump.

Arthur’s hands curve over the top of his head then work their way down massaging the soap through the strands and against John’s scalp.

“Explain what you meant.”

“What I meant?” John echoes in confusion.

“That your comfort ‘ain’t got limits’.”

“Well, it don’t, not with you.”

Arthur’s hands pause in his hair before continuing.

“What does that mean, John?” Arthur stresses.

“It…” John huffs and crosses his arms tighter, “It means I trust you.”

Arthur’s hands move back to the younger’s arms and help John lean back again.

John dips his head under the water fully and shakes his hair out in the water before resurfacing.

As soon as he’s back on his feet he turns around to face Arthur who looks a little startled.

“I trust you,” John says plainly.

“I trust you,” Arthur whispers, studying the younger’s face.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title is literally just bluffing but apparently i dont like one-word titles anymore soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
> i'm procrastinating by writing this but i'm also trying to make this vent universe not vent-y lmao 
> 
> @gwennolmarie on tumblr and twitter uwu 
> 
> also in case you were thinking it, i'm also @ them like 'now kiss!' but NOT YET


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